


And trewe of love thise women were echoon

by Lilliburlero



Category: 14th Century CE RPF, 15th Century CE RPF, Henry V - Shakespeare
Genre: F/F, Genderbending, Headcanon, Pseudo-scholarship, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 06:16:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1418086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilliburlero/pseuds/Lilliburlero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These entries were thought too recondite to include in <i>Women in Late Medieval England and Wales: A Biographical Dictionary</i>, eds Charlotte A. Dodd, Pamela Laredo Marlow, and Thomasine Merrick (Streweminster: Streweminster University Press, 2013).  They are reproduced here in the interests of open access to research and scholarship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And trewe of love thise women were echoon

**Tamazin Gower** (d. c.1440??). The fragmentary records of ☞Dartford Priory give us a fascinating glimpse into the life of a middle-class woman of the early fifteenth century. The daughter of a yeoman farmer from Kent, she seems to have entered the priory c. 1400, and may have been one of the contributors to the manuscript known as the ☞Dartford Herbal, now lost, but referred to in several documents of the succeeding century as a work of reference authored by ‘certayn Whit Ladys of Kent.' Certainly in 1409 she is recorded as the infirmarian of the priory. Another fragmentary record speaks of Tamazin’s madness; it appears that she began to articulate pronounced and embarrassing ☞Lollard sentiments to certain patients in the priory hospital. Proceedings charging her with heresy were forestalled by the intervention of an influential lay guest at the priory, referred to in the manuscript as ‘gulaadis fwellen.’ This is almost certainly a reference to ☞Gwladys ferch Llewelyn (after 1370?-c.1430), a friend of the prioress and frequent visitor to Dartford. Tamazin returned to her duties, it seems; and although her date of death is not recorded, slips from the priory record in the fourth decade of the fifteenth century.

(PLM)

 **Gwladys ferch Llewelyn** (after 1370?-c.1430) Tantalisingly little is known of this Welsh gentlewoman of the late 14th and early fifteenth centuries. She enters the historical record as a minor patron of the poet Iolo Goch (c.1320-1398), who praises her learning rather in advance of her looks. Her political sympathies, it seems, tended towards loyalty to the English crown, and her political and amorous connections are mainly numbered among the opponents to Owain Glyn Dwr (c.1349-c.1415). A brief marriage to an English knight in the late 1380s produced no issue, and no subsequent marriage is recorded. She is listed as one of those present at the negotiations which ended the French landings at Milford Haven in 1405. Some historians posit that she may have been the mistress of Roger Vaughan of Bredwardine (d.1415), but the evidence for this rests, oddly, on a passionate poem of _fin amor_ addressed to Roger's wife, ☞Gwladys ferch Dafydd Gam (d.1454), known as the the Star of Abergavenny. This poem is more usually attributed to Lewis Glyn Cothi (c.1420-1490). However, a MS fragment from the second decade of the fifteenth century credits Gwladys with certain (admittedly formulaic) lines from it. Her relations with Dafydd Gam, however, appear not to have been cordial. Gwladys served in the household of ☞Katherine of Valois (1401-1437) after the latter's marriage to Henry V in 1420. A surviving letter makes reference to Gwladys's friendship with the ☞prioress of Dartford, a foundation of ☞Augustinian Canonesses, where she seems to have ended her days.

(THMM)

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written as headcanon memes on Tumblr.
> 
> My title is from Chaucer's _Legend of Good Women_.
> 
> With the exception of Gwladys and Tamazin, of course, all persons and places mentioned are historical, if not historically accurate. The Dartford Herbal is fictional, as is the _Biographical Dictionary_ mentioned in the summary.


End file.
